It all comes down to blood sugar levels. When your blood sugar levels run high, you release insulin, which tells your body to store the extra sugar as fat. When your sugars run low, you are tired, fatigued, and always feel hungry having all kinds of cravings. Your body wants to protect you and make you eat. Having a normal blood sugar level or being in the "normal zone" is where you want to be. This won't make you hungry, won't cause a surge in insulin, and won't make you feel tired. Plus, you keep losing weight!

Below is a graphic that helps demonstrate this concept.

Too Low

Blood sugar levels below 70, cause extreme fatigue, hunger, and cravings. Your body wants to protect you and wants you to eat. Unfortunately, it makes you crave simple carbohydrates which will cause your blood sugar to sky rocket and release more insulin. Releasing more insulin causes an immediate drop in blood sugar back to the "too low" range and makes you hungry again. You have to break this vicious cycle. The first phase of the C3 Diet helps you break out of this cycle. Eating the right foods helps you break out. Whatever you do, avoid simple carbohydrates. Drink plenty of water to fill your stomach up, and eat protein, good fats, and good, complex carbohydrates.

The key is low and slow. You want to raise your blood sugar slowly and over a long period of time, without going too high. You want to end up in the green zone where you are full, burning fat, and not going to crash later.

Normal

Blood sugar levels between 70 and 100 are considered normal. You want to be in this green, normal zone as much as possible. You won't feel hungry, no cravings, no fat storage, no fatigue, and no crash later. This is the perfect zone for fat burn. You will be burning calories and cruising along with lots of energy and feel good all day long.

Low and slow. Eat foods to keep you in this zone. Eat small, frequent meals of the healthy variety. Every 2 to 3 hours you should have a small snack or small meal. Don't eat things with a high glycemic index that will cause a surge in blood sugar levels, and don't starve yourself so that you will crash and binge later. Be consistent and be cognizant of what you are eating.

Too High

The enemy of weight loss is high blood sugar levels. Elevated blood sugar levels will cause a surge in insulin secretion. This secretion of insulin tells your body to eliminate sugar out of the blood stream as quickly as possible. The fastest way to get rid of blood sugar is to convert it to fat for storage. That is the problem. People whose blood sugar consistently runs over 100, will be consistently storing fat. You don't want to be this person.

With the surge in insulin, comes a quick drop in blood sugar (unless you are diabetic, see the diabetes section). The drop in blood sugar puts you back into the "too low" range. The fatigue, hunger, and cravings will ensue, thus repeating the cycle. You have to avoid this roller coaster ride of elevated then severely low blood sugars. Otherwise, you will never lose weight. Your body will become very efficient at storing fat! See the Yo-Yo Dieting section for more information.

Low and Slow

If there was ever a theme for the C3 Diet, it'd be low and slow. Keep your blood sugars in the green zone and go slow with food intake. That's the way to lose weight. Avoid foods with a high glycemic index. See the glycemic index section for details.